Sutton Park Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Sutton Park Primary School continues to be a good school.

The headteacher of this school is Elizabeth Lee. This school is part of Hull Collaborative Academy Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school.

The trust is run by the chief executive officer (CEO) Estelle MacDonald, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Malcolm Mathias.

What is it like to attend this school?

The school starts teaching children about their high expectations for positive behaviour from the early years foundation stage. If necessary, staff facilitate circle talks between pupils to restore relationships.

The school has an impressive ou...tdoor area where pupils play at lunch and playtime. Pupils access a varied and extensive selection of play equipment. For example, pupils of all ages play together on wheeled toys and in a water area.

There is a mud kitchen and pupils enjoy relaxing in the reading tent. This helps to build strong relationships between younger and older pupils.Pupils understand and respect the school's behaviour ladder.

They consider moving down the ladder for making poor choices a fair sanction.Pupils attend residentials in Year 4 and Year 6 to develop independence, team building skills and to take considered risks. The school provides pupils with educational visits linked to the curriculum.

For example, Year 6 visit Bempton Cliffs as part of their geography field trip.Pupils in Year 3 enjoy learning to play a brass instrument. Year 5 pupils speak positively about their participation in a trust opera.

The school prioritises a love of reading to bring joy to pupils and families. For example, the community book swap area in the school entrance puts reading at the heart of the school.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The school's curriculum design stems from their curriculum drivers of aspiration, communication and understanding.

It has systematically sequenced each subject's disciplinary knowledge to ensure that pupils can make links between their learning and to other subjects. The school continually reviews and adapts the curriculum to meet the needs of its pupils. For example, the history curriculum structure features four key concepts: society, power and conflict, invention and beliefs and Gods.

This ensures that pupils cover concepts to prepare them for key stage 3 history.The school considers pupils' prior learning when starting a new unit of learning. Each lesson starts with a retrieval aspect that includes questions on learning from the previous lesson, the previous week and the previous unit.

This is intrinsically linked to the essential knowledge the school has identified it wants pupils to remember. However, while pupils can recall some knowledge linked to specific topics, it is not necessarily the essential knowledge.The school's fidelity to teaching phonics has steadily improved the phonics screening outcomes for Year 1 pupils.

Pupils' reading books match the sounds that they know. Pupils use their phonic knowledge well to work out unfamiliar sounds. There is a catch-up programme in place in each year group for pupils who need further phonics support.

The school has invested in high-quality books across seven areas including diversity and acceptance, inspirational change makers and the world around us. This ensures that pupils access a range of genres and authors.The school identifies communication, speech and language as the greatest need for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

It recognises that some children are starting school with limited vocabulary. As a result, it ensures that communication skills are a prioritised in the Nursery. Children experience rhyme time, songs, stories and listening games.

The school works closely with speech and language specialists to provide bespoke support for pupils. This early identification helps to improve pupils' ability to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings.The school has adapted the sequence of learning in mathematics to ensure it meets the needs of its pupils.

For example, it has reduced the number of procedural methods in some year groups. Staff support pupils with SEND with lots of repetitive tasks to ensure that they have the mathematical skills for life. The school builds pupils' automaticity with an ambitious times table programme.

Every mathematics session starts with counting or chanting times table section. In Years 3 and 4 there is additional multiplication practice to build stamina. This is impacting positively on the multiplication check outcomes.

The school addresses gaps in pupil knowledge through the quick 10. These are 10 questions at the start of each lesson recapping what has been previously taught.There is a whole school approach to teaching about healthy relationships.

Pupils know a positive relationship is built on trust, happiness and consent. Pupils confidently discuss equality and discrimination.The school takes the workload and well-being of staff into consideration.

For example, trust networking opportunities enable staff to share good practice. Subject leaders have a determination and commitment to improve their area of responsibility. The trust offers a balance of support and professional development to continue to support school improvement.

However, in some subjects the school's monitoring programme has not sufficiently identified the strengths and weaknesses.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The school has identified too much essential knowledge that they want pupils to remember in the wider curriculum.

This means there are some inconsistencies in what is being emphasised by teachers as important knowledge. The school recognises it needs to clearly identify the most important knowledge to ensure that pupils are recalling the right learning to build on. ? The school's monitoring of the curriculum has not been rigorous enough.

This hampers its ability to identify successes and areas for improvement. The school should strengthen their oversight of the curriculum.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good/outstanding.

This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in January 2015.